This is for all you PCCW-hating Lammites...
I just got out of our PCCW contract and have been looking at other options. I was impressed with seeing a friend get 20mbps data speeds with SmarTone on his rooftop near the YSW temple. I saw another friend get the same speeds on a rooftop near Brother's. I've never gotten higher than 3.5mbps with PCCW's broadband.
I live in Yung Shue Long New Village and had a friend test his SmarTone LTE in my house. No such luck. So my only option is 3G networks. Thus, I picked up a Huawei 3G (HSPDA+ 21mbps capable) modem and router. Because I have a seperate router that runs a US-based VPN, I needed an ethernet port. HK$630 was the cheapest I could find. WiFi-only runs about HK$500 at the bottom end. USB dongles are about HK$300. Nobody in Sham Shui Po had a normal router with SIM-card access for less than HK$1000, which is also about the cheapest price for an LTE portable WiFi router. If you go shopping for a 3G router, make sure you get "3.5G" 21.1 mbps rather than the more common (and only slightly cheaper) 7.2 mbps. Like LTE, you usually don't get near the theoretical max but you're still operating at a higher frequency.
I bought two different prepaid SIM cards to do some testing. Below you'll see a link to my tests as I update them (I'm using speedtest.net). I have full-signal with all connections and broadcasting a higher strength WiFi signal through a separate ethernet-connected router, so there's no issue with me being too far from the device itself. It seems speeds are determined by the total capacity of the tower, rather than strength of its signal. <strike>So I think these are the speeds almost everyone on Lamma would get - but I might be wrong.</strike> [I don't think so now]
Google Docs: <a href=https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zYarKMU50XJXqK24SuDYPfFZo3v6S0hA_vHZzQNEjow/edit>Lamma 3G Speed Tests sheet</a>
So far, One2Free has been a total failure at meeting PCCW's speed. SmarTone has been a mixed bag. Late at night, I can double PCCW's speed. In the afternoon it's half the speed. I plan to try PCCW 3G and Three in the next few days.
Below you'll see a Google Docs spreadsheet I made for myself trying to compare all of the different plans.
Google Docs: <a href=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgqH9bpKNpUmdDBDRDRQOFAzNksyYmZPVGFma3JtWFE&usp=sharing>3G and LTE Data Price Plan Comparisons</a>
Note that most 3G and LTE plans have a "fair usage" limit. That means after you reach that limit, they start to throttle your data speeds. I've been told by people who have this happen to them that it's inconsistent and typically kicks in when you're trying to download big files. No store would give me a 差不多 of what the average throttled speed is.
So far, I think SmarTone might be the best deal if you don't use too much data. They sell prepaid cards for $48 that are loaded with 5gb. There is no recharging, but it'll be cheaper than PCCW if you go through less than 20gb a month. And there's no contract.
I would love to see what SpeedTest results other people are getting around Lamma.
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